Tego Calderon - The Reggaeton King

(Santurce, Puerto Rico, 1972) Puerto Rican singer and composer, one of the reggaeton and Latin hip-hop highlights of the current scene.

On February 1, 1972 born in a wealthy family from the town of Santurce Tego Calderón. Over the years, that child would become one of the most famous reggaeton singers and music of his native country, Puerto Rico. His compositions have achieved considerable success in large part because they show a significant influence of salsa and rhythms characteristic of Antillean music. No doubt that is the result of his great admiration for the idol to generations of Latinos, Ismael Rivera.

The racism and life on the street are two of the themes which revolve around the compositions of Tego Calderón. African tradition of his people and his experience in prison will have made enough to reflect their feelings in many of their songs and dedicate his efforts to talk to young people about the evil that can be found on the street.

Tego Calderón's life can be defined as traveling as soon moved his family and he spent his youth first in Rio Grande, another city of Puerto Rico. It was precisely in those years when his parents took him to music lessons, which helped him to train in this area. He later moved to all United States.

Although the music did not fail to be present in your life at any time since teenager Tego Calderón was dedicated to many different jobs to survive. The now famous performer was still very young when he began to take its first steps as a percussionist music: at the time was engaged to play the drums in the group Escolquer. His artistic interests changed in 1988, while living in Miami. There he discovered the rap and started to penetrate this world.

The career of this singer known for its aesthetic Afro started when he participated in the recording Crazy Boricua 2. Then go through a time of silence, until the rapper Eddie Dee helped him back to sing. The result of this collaboration are the themes that appear in terror of lyric and Boricuas NY.

Tego Calderón began to have serious problems when he decided to return home. He had no luck in his facet as a musician and was doomed to delinquency. It was at that time when the singer ended up in Puerto Rico prison after being tried for possession of weapons. Far from being the start of its decline, this meant their recovery phase as an artist.

In 2002, after leaving prison, launched under the direction of the White Lion Records label debut album, El Abayarde. This album was a resounding success which has sold over 300,000 copies and led to Tego Calderón to start a spiral of tours, collaborations and concerts. Its impact was such that even then many fans know him as El Abayarde.

All titles of this work is true hits: The Abayarde, Cambumbo, Your eyes, Plant and Bonsai flag, among others. Later, on July 1 of 2003, the record company RCA began to distribute copies of Abayarde in various locations in the United States. Achieved in this country the same success as in Puerto Rico and this time was even nominated for the Latin Grammys. In addition to performing all of these recordings Tego Calderón has taken part in the film 45 and has had the privilege of working with prestigious musicians from different genres, such as Angel "cachet" Maldonado and Gilberto Santa Rosa.

In 2004 participated in a compilation of Latin hip-hop published under the title The Enemy of Guasíbiri and two years later, after signing a contract with the multinational Atlantic Records, released his second album: The Underdog / El underestimated. The new work rhythms merged from various sources (pump, reggae, blues, Cuban rumba and salsa NY) and maintained its lyrical quality and direct contact with the street. This album was followed Abayarde The counter-attack (2007), in a line similar to the one above, which received a Grammy nomination for 2008.